This invention relates to a device for screwing in and out electrical lamps located at an elevated position from a floor, including a stick, a plurality of suction cups arranged circularly at one end of the stick, said suction cups being adapted to be urged against a lamp by means of the stick and in doing so by an evacuation of a portion of the air in the suction cups adhering to the glass body of the lamp so firmly that the lamp is able to be screwed in or out.
Such devices are known (cf. U.S. Pat. No. 2,722,448). The prior art devices have inherent a substantial disadvantage, however, which is the following. Upon urging the suction cups against the glass body of the lamp, a portion of the air within the suction cups is expelled, a vacuum thereby resulting in the suction cups, by which the firm engagement of the suction cups with the lamp body required for screwing it in or out is insured. Practice now has taught that by a pulling action upon the stick of the device the suction cups are not releasable from the lamp body, without at least the risk existing of the lamp body breaking. In the conventional devices therefore, before the device is releasable from the lamp, the vacuum in the suction cups must be relieved by deforming a part of the rims of the suction cups. For this purpose, at the suction cups there are attached in the vicinity of the rims chains with their one ends, which with their other ends are firmly connected to a sleeve sliding on the stick of the device. The sleeve is secured in its initial position by a detent lever spring and capable of being pulled in direction of the rear end of the stick by means of a string guided along the stick of the device. Such devices are complicated in manipulation, however, because for releasing the suction cups from the lamp body the sleeve must be pulled together with the chains and after a releasing of the suction cups must be pushed back into the initial position. They are also relatively complicated in their structure and accordingly expensive in production as a result of the arrangement of the parts required for deforming the suction cups.